January 2010

Here’s a task: design an exhibit that’s actually three exhibits in one, relying solely on images of the featured objects supplied in a PowerPoint file—objects that won’t arrive for months. Such was the challenge of Art of Craft, a rich, binational survey of contemporary craft presented with the Vancouver 2010 Cultural Olympiad that opens tonight. Exhibit designers Kirsti Wakelin and Darren Carcary of Vancouver-based Resolve Design opted for a simple, spare concept that belies both the complexity of the 173 objects on view and the themes each gallery incorporates in layer, upon layer, upon layer. The range of materials is staggering, too, covering ceramics, textiles, glass, wood, and metal, among others.

If there is a central thesis to Art of Craft says Wakelin, it’s that the world of craft is incredibly broad and doesn’t have a boundary. “Most craft is fine art but the word ‘craft’ has typically referred to the technical ability of doing or making. That’s changing.”

The first gallery or show-within-a-show, entitled Unity and Diversity, is a national survey of works that were recently shown at the Cheongju International Craft Biennale in Korea. The 75 pieces were selected out of 1,400 submissions to six juries coordinated by provincial and territorial craft councils overseen by the Canadian Crafts Federation.

Unity and Diversity represents a more traditional or classic approach to craft, but there’s a lightness here, too, and a common rejection of nostalgia. Many of the artisans question old ideas about Canadian identity, motifs, and history, while others challenge preconceived notions about the materials themselves: Springtime by Nova Scotian Dawn MacNutt looks as though it were made from wicker. In fact, it’s painted bronze-cast wire—and weighs a tonne. The nine ceramic figures of the work fine lines by Margaret Matsuyama (pictured left) are a comment on what she sees as a Canadian tendency to broadly categorize “diversity” while overlooking individual differences. “Diversity in multicultural Canada is often broadly defined by categories that overlook complex, subtle differences of identity.”

The second gallery turns its attention to crafts produced on the West Coast. By Hand/B.C. and Yukon was also a juried show, but when it reached MOV it hadn’t been formally curated. Carcary and Wakelin organized the objects by medium and added a multimedia section that focuses on an area they find fascinating: process. They shot and produced a series of two-minute films of Vancouver-based artisans Peter Kiss, Barbara Heller, Jinny Whitehead, and Barbara Cohen—all with pieces on display here—to capture studio life and the intimacies of the creative process. “By seeing what’s involved in the making of an object, you develop a greater appreciation for the skill involved,” says Carcary. “Each artisan creates a tangible object on film, but their approaches are so totally different.” For some, the materials determine the final outcome; for others, they’re just a means to an end.

The third gallery, entitled simply Craft from the Republic of Korea, offers a representation of objects used or found in the Korean home. It’s more thematically concise than the Canadian galleries, but the exacting attention to form and materials is the same. Some of the pieces have a distinct Pacific North quality to them, too (Bae Se Hwa’s incredible white birch lanterns, Easylight-01, would be right at home at the B.C. Wood Co-op; ditto Kim Kyung lae’s Branch Chair, a high-backed piece made from ash, maple, and ebony woods with a seat fashioned from cord).

Wakelin and Carcary are themselves involved with Vancouver’s craft scene, participating in a regular craft night or “crafternoon” that brings together anywhere from a handful to 15 friends to create anything and everything from knitting to collages to stop-motion photography. The idea inspired the Museum’s DIY@MOV craft night coming up on January 21, and Wakelin will be leading one of the sessions. (More on all that later.)

There’s a lot of ground covered in Art of Craft—and far more to cover still. In the coming weeks, we’ll look at contemporary craft in Vancouver and how various practices are evolving. However you spend your time in the exhibit, be sure to pause near the entrance to watch the projection of close-shot photographs of some of the works featured inside. The discipline and skill used to achieve such extraordinary detail is precisely what Art of Craft is about.

Image caption material, from top to bottom:

Selection from The Meditation of Order by Eliza Au.
fine lines by Margaret Matsuyama
Gallery wall featured in By Hand/B.C. and Yukon gallery
Sanctuary by Noelle Hamlyn Snell

If the Granville Street Fred Herzog photographed in the 1950s represents the area’s heyday, how do we get back there? (See images and intro in the previous post here.) Quick answer: we can’t and shouldn’t. The Orpheum and Vogue theatres are still around, sure, but there’s now an intense concentration of bars and nights clubs alongside them. (There are now more liquor seats in this section of Granville than anywhere else in the city.) In addition, Granville is now a regional transit hub where three subway lines converge onto a car-free transit mall. Downtown Granville Street isn’t Main Street, or even South Granville Street; it serves less charming purposes. A better question is whether the new Granville—the workhorse, not the neon fantasy—can become a beloved, vibrant street again?

We think it just might. Here’s why.

The redesign was conceived by Elizabeth Macdonald and Allan Jacobs, two renowned San Francisco-based urban designers who’ve studied the world’s most significant streets down to the smallest of details. “It’s no big mystery,” writes Jacobs. “The best streets are comfortable to walk along with leisure and safety. They are streets for both pedestrians and drivers. They have definition, a sense of enclosure with their buildings; distinct ends and beginnings, usually with trees… The key point is that great streets are where pedestrians and drivers get along together.”

Macdonald and Jacobs have remade many a workhorse street. For example, in 2005, they completed a redesign of Octavia Boulevard in San Francisco (pictured left), replacing a section of the elevated Central Freeway that was rendered unsafe in a 1989 earthquake with a smart multi-way boulevard. It bears all of their trademarks: side lanes for parking, generous tree-lined sidewalks, and abundant landscaping and green space to counterbalance the pavement. I visited the site on a cloudless Saturday morning in November. The brunch crowd was out in force, crowding the sidewalks of several patios that overlook the boulevard. Hayes Green Park at the boulevard’s north end was just as lively; a public space, bordered by a major throughfare that somehow manages to complement the surroundings rather than disrupt them. According to an article by the Congress for the New Urbanism, since the boulevard was completed, real estate prices in the neighbourhood grew 30% faster than the city average. Retail rebounded, too. “Where it had been previously populated by liquor stores and mechanic shops, soon the area was teeming with trendy restaurants and high-end boutiques.”

The Granville Street redesign is still raw. The black asphalt and gleaming concrete need to settle into the surroundings, and the too-skinny street trees need time to mature (the City shouldn’t have skimped on them). But change is afoot. A light has been turned on. If nothing else, the new Granville will succeed because it doesn’t just manage crowds, it embraces them. Gone is the tired lighting, unwelcoming seating, and the ’70s-era S-shaped/meandering street section at the north end of the street; in, are double-wide sidewalks with inventive built-in benches (PWL Landscape Architects inspire again). Outdoor performance space has been considered, too, with the idea to project video on the side of the Sears department store.

All of it was long overdue.

Additional reading:

City of Vancouver, Granville Street Redesign

Project for Public Spaces “Placemaker Profile, Allan B. Jacobs”
“Building a Boulevard” by Elizabeth Macdonald in ACCESS magazine, published by the University of California Transportation Center.

Image credits:

Artist’s rendering of Granville Street Redesign, Helmcken to Nelson.
Artist’s rendering of Granville to Robson, potential for special events.
Octavia Boulevard, Rosemary Poole

In this morning’s Globe and Mail, columnist Gary Mason says the success of the 2010 Games will depend on two things. One: medal count—including golds in Men and Women’s Hockey. And two: the quality of Vancouver’s hospitality. Will we make room on too-crowded city buses? Give directions when we see bewildered visitors with a map folded out in front of them? Mason argues we’re an aloof, phlegmatic bunch, writing: “Let’s just say, Vancouver will never be a city in which it’s easy to find volunteers for a pancake breakfast.” We’re nice. Gregarious? Not so much. Read the rest of the column here.

Our observation? We’re at our friendliest outdoors. The same person who breezes past you on the street, calls out a bright “hello!” on the hiking trail—even on the Grouse Grind, which is usually packed with tourists wearing inappropriate footwear. In wintertime, we don’t huddle together in pubs, we head outdoors. We head to winter sporting events when we’re not participating in them. We crave open air. So, while it’s impossible to say how we’ll deal with epic traffic snarls and confused masses, we’re betting that love of winter sport will carry us through. Thoughts?